Environment: Green Light on Cannikin

The word is go. Or, as AEC Chairman James R. Schlesinger put it, "The
Atomic Energy Commission is now planning to proceed with the Cannikin
test. We have received the requisite authority to go, including
detonation."

The decision was made by Richard Nixon himself, and it was a decision he
did not expect to have to make. The whole thing seemed simple enough
when it was proposed. The nation needed an anti-ballistic missile
system, and its prime ingredient was the Spartan warhead, which is
designed to destroy or neutralize incoming enemy warheads.